Ellen DeGeneres and Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), recently united in taking a stand against Ag Gag bills.

On her show, Ellen and Pacelle discussed how lawmakers are trying to stop animal activists and undercover investigators from documenting animal abuse.

“I’ve been really concerned. I’m seeing more and more states considering what are called Ag Gag or anti-whistleblower bills. And we have undercover investigators who go find terrible things at factory farms, or at puppy mills or at horse stables where people are injuring the horses,” Pacelle said. “They’re trying to make it a crime for us to take pictures or video of animals in these settings, because so many of our investigations have yielded incredible results.”

Pacelle asks people to visit Ellen’s official website to help the HSUS and to reach out to Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee to ask him to veto his Ag Bag bill, in addition to other states that are following in similar footsteps.

This announcement made singer Carrie Underwood extremely happy. For the past week or so, the “American Idol” winner has been tweeting against Tennessee’s Ag Gag bill.

Most recently she tweeted and thanked Ellen for her announcement, “@TheEllenShow: You have always been such an angel when it comes to animal compassion! Thank you for speaking out! Just when I thought I couldn’t adore and respect you more…”

Pacelle said, “Every animal deserves humane treatment. They deserve mercy and kindness from us. Criminalizing people who are trying to help animals and stop cruelty is so deeply wrong.”

In addition to the fight against these bills, Ellen declared if 25,000 people shared the video below on Facebook, she will donate $25,000 to the HSUS. Guess what, she’s going to be donating that money. The video has already been shared over 48,000 times. No surprise there!

Pacelle considers DeGeneres “the leading animal welfare celebrity personality in the world,” so hopefully together these two, and those that lend a helping hand, can put a stop to animal abuse.

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About Allyson Koerner

Allyson Koerner first found her love of writing while attending Westminster College in Pennsylvania, and that passion evolved while she was earning her Master's in Print & Multimedia Journalism at Boston's Emerson College. She's an experienced writer dabbling in all things vegan, green, entertainment and TV-related. Feel free to keep tabs on her over at Twitter: @AllysonKoerner.

Wayne Pacelle will do literally anything for publicity and money. That includes partnering with Michael Vick and taking big bucks from disgraced for-profit education mill (ATI Enterprises) kingpin Arthur Benjamin – even though he knew about their massive theft of government grant money. Wayne has been notorious throughout his entire 25+ year career for stealing credit for the work of others – for money and publicity. He is loathed by the most respected people in the animal welfare community.

Wayne’s pathological lying and opportunism were both exposed and detailed in an article directly related to the ag-gag controversy. “A Case of Abuse, Heightened” was written by New York Times columnist, Joe Nocera, who is anything but a shill for animal agriculture. He’s brilliant (aka the opposite of vacuous Ellen DeGeneres). Ellen also hosted a tirade by Pacelle in 2010, where he railed against changes made to a poorly crafted (by HSUS) bill in Missouri. Governor Jay Nixon was annoyed – not persuaded or intimidated by Wayne’s publicity stunt. I doubt that Governor Haslam will be either.

Notfromthisplanet

No one has seen you or heard of your name in trying to help the animals. His organization has done so much for the animal kingdom and my money is with HSUS.

MisterCadet

You don’t have to be a celebrity to help animals. The HSUS CEO sees himself as a celebrity, at great cost to donors and animals. I see the CEO as a creepily aging, narcissistic liar and megalomaniac. As to America’s sweetheart, please read Frogdog’s blog entry “Ellen Degeneres Disappears Another Dog.” You will see what a fake-phony-fraud she is.

I am not really in favor of the Tennessee bill, but I understand why some farmers and animal agriculture businesses resent the HSUS’s underhanded ways. HSUS claims to be the most effective farm animal group, but they are not. Mercy for Animals has conducted more undercover investigations than all the other organizations put together, without the huge PR and fundraising operation HSUS wastes far too much money on. MFA doesn’t commit perjury in Congressional testimony, sit on evidence for many weeks AFTER a lengthy undercover operation, and lie about it. Neither does the Humane Farming Association. My money is with HFA.

I am neutral on these bills as they stand and might favor them with some changes to allow more time for animal advocates to detect abuses. In any case, I don’t believe they would be cropping up if not for HSUS’s tactics and HSUS’s grossly excessive (for a tax exempt charity) lobbying for legislation in defiance of the law. There’s a reason HSUS is facing lawsuits for paying witnesses, illegal raids and illegal animal seizures. HSUS is the bad actor that is giving ammunition to the opposition and hurting the good organizations I support in the process.

I would advise you to fact check Pacelle’s claims about how much HSUS has done for the animal kingdom. Their “Annual Reports” and “Financial Statements” are not legal documents and are works of self-aggrandizing fiction. If you cross check with general online searches and a careful reading of the only legal document they have to produce – their IRS 990’s – you just might find that HSUS puts out a lot of false and misleading information, made-up numbers and self-aggrandizing drivel.

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